Ron opposes BPA privatization plan

Ron said the Trump administration’s new scheme to peddle away most of the Bonneville Power Administration would increase costs for tens of thousands of Oregon homes and businesses.

The senator will fight for those customers by opposing that misguided Trump proposal, just as he successfully opposed Republicans’ efforts more than a decade ago to privatize Bonneville.

“Public power customers in the Pacific Northwest have paid for the system and their investment should not be put up for sale,” he said after news surfaced this week that Trump is again trying to privatize BPA transmission assets invested in by Northwest ratepayers.

The Public Power Council has joined Ron in opposing the BPA privatization, saying it “appears to be a transfer of value from the people of the Northwest to the U.S. Treasury.”

Heading into his upcoming schedule of town halls across the state, Ron said he expects this proposed BPA sell-off will be among the issues Oregonians will want to discuss.

The BPA threat is just one piece of a larger White House budget that also will be a likely discussion topic at the town halls in Clackamas, Marion, Benton, Lane and Douglas counties.

Ron looks forward to hearing Oregonians’ thoughts on the deep harm that budget could cause – and to sharing his plan to push back hard against what he calls this “cynical assault on American ideas."

“I’m putting this budget where it belongs – in the trash can,” he said.